Congratulations, Dean Spanos. You have done what Donald Trump, Roger Goodell, Colin Kaepernick and a ballroom full of concussion researchers could not: You made people stop watching an NFL team.

I must admit, I didn’t think this was possible. The NFL could sell beef to vegans, lawnmowers to apartment-dwellers, rat poison to a rat. Sure, the league’s TV ratings have fallen a bit, but the NFL is still an entertainment giant: the NBA and The Avengers and Beyoncé rolled into one.

Enter 67-year-old Dean Spanos, stage left—which obviously means he was supposed to enter stage right. The Spanos family has owned the Chargers for 33 years, but he grew unhappy with his stadium in San Diego. His solution: complain to the city council and then hide in his house. Then he took his team out of San Diego, a small market where people thought he was a cheap, inept weasel, to Los Angeles, a large market where people think he is a cheap, inept weasel.

The Chargers are supposed to share a $2.6 billion stadium with the Rams, who moved back to Los Angeles from St. Louis in 2016. Spanos announced the move with a well-crafted press release: “Hey-yo, this is Dean Spanos, I love small children, please buy tickets for the San Diego Los Angeles Chargers football product—on sale now!!!” He then unveiled a logo that appeared to have been drawn by a seven-year-old with a crayon, in a bumper car.

Unfortunately, when Spanos arrived in L.A. after sitting in traffic for three days, he discovered that the stadium was not ready. Apparently officials are still assembling the sign outside that reads PROUD HOME OF THE RAMS, ETC.

...

Spanos seemed to think that Los Angeles was dying for a second NFL team, which is funny because we weren’t sure L.A. wanted a first NFL team. The city did just fine for two decades after the Rams and the Raiders left town. Still, the Rams’ moving back made some business and karmic sense: L.A. should have an NFL team, and the city simply repossessed the Rams after St. Louis swiped them in the ’90s.

Giving L.A. a second NFL team is like giving Miami a second snowplow. Nobody asked for it, nobody wants it and nobody knows what to do with it. Spanos has said publicly that he hopes San Diegans still support their Chargers and will drive the 120 miles to L.A. You might as well ask your first wife to pay your second wife’s car payments. San Diego has too much self-respect to do that.

America’s football fans will do a lot to support their teams. Clevelanders have happily watched the Browns play horrible football in ugly uniforms. Detroiters have always loved the Lions even though most of the time the Lions couldn’t figure out how to love them back.

Those cities support their teams because the franchises are just that: their teams. The Chargers are nobody’s team. San Diego is mad at them. Los Angeles did not invite them.

This could all change eventually, I suppose, if the Rams are awful and the Chargers are good. L.A. could forget this is an arranged marriage and decide to live happily ever after with the Chargers.

But for now the Chargers are the party guests who keep pouring themselves more drinks while everybody else fake-yawns and checks their watches.

So congratulations, Dean. You found a way to make people boycott NFL games, and you didn’t even have to pay for picket signs

Enter 67-year-old Dean Spanos, stage left—which obviously means he was supposed to enter stage right. The Spanos family has owned the Chargers for 33 years, but he grew unhappy with his stadium in San Diego. His solution: complain to the city council and then hide in his house.

Then he took his team out of San Diego, a small market where people thought he was a cheap, inept weasel, to Los Angeles, a large market where people think he is a cheap, inept weasel.

Also, this is a great analogy:

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Giving L.A. a second NFL team is like giving Miami a second snowplow. Nobody asked for it, nobody wants it, and nobody knows what to do with it.

Loved the lines above. But this is what it feels like after being a season ticket holder for many years...

Spanos has said publicly that he hopes San Diegans still support their Chargers and will drive the 120 miles to L.A. You might as well ask your first wife to pay your second wife’s car payments. San Diego has too much self-respect to do that.

County Supervisor Ron Roberts’ claim that the county does not and cannot spend money on city “facilities” is only valid if you also conclude Roberts was trying to con the NFL and desperate Chargers fans two years ago.

City hall got over being hostile to building a new stadium about 8 years ago. A hostile, anti-stadium city government would not have put together the CSAG group in 2015.

This city is open to building a stadium, it's just that the fans, taxpayers, and city hall keep saying they want it to be in Mission Valley, not on the waterfront. Just because the voters didn't want to gift the worst owner in the NFL a billion dollars for a waterfront stadium that no one asked for does not mean this city is against building a stadium. They're working on the matter now, actually, it's just at the city's usual glacial pace.

OK, a valid enough perspective for a SD resident. Maybe a billionaire who loves San Diego owns an NFL team in 5 or 15 (or whatever) years will view the Charger exodus somewhat that way. He'll be happy slowly working with SD to spend his money, with a bit of help from SD, building a stadium where SD wants it. Or happy to spend his own money to get it done wherever and however he wants (like Kronke in LA).

But most owners are likely to see other factors, from a less rosy light. Yes the city was happy to talk about a stadium for years, and showed every indication of willingness to talk for many more years to come. Appoint panels to schedule meetings to discuss when and where to meet next and maybe even what talking points to cover when they talk next, rinse, repeat.

Then elsewhere in the NFL, the threat of a team or 2 moving into the long-vacant metropolis to the immediate north became real. This understandably (some may argue the point, but hopefully at least understand) put pressure on the owner to put a real plan in place, other than being trapped below in the ocean/border/desert town, in a crumbling stadium with a city completely content to talk about it indefinitely. So the owner stepped up and took charge and got a stadium building measure on the Nov ballot.
Does a neutral-billionaire-future-owner think, "well that guy tried to get it built where he wanted it to be, in the vibrant downtown, not where the city wanted it to be, in a deadspace valley in need of renewal - so maybe SD really is a great place to move my team to!"? Doesn't seem likely.

(We can take it for granted that everybody not named Spanos sees Dean & spawn as terrible owners, even terrible humans; while reveling in that makes this thread fun, it doesn't factor into a NFL team moving to SD some day.)

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Like I said before, it's not the ticket sales. Hell, the NFL owners have insulated themselves from poor ticket sales anyway. If they can't draw any fans, it's the ticket brokers and StubHubbers who are out the cash. Now if THOSE guys start to get angry, you could see some traction...

But really, what would force a sale is A) a major drop in net TV ratings (we're already seeing that), and B) a major issue with competitive balance within the league. And the fact that anyone with @LAC on their schedule is getting 9 home games per year is already affecting column B.

Add in the fact that the NFL owners are 32 raging egomaniacs, and this move has been nothing but a humiliation for the league, and it's kind of hard to see Dean staying where he is past the negotiation of the next NFL TV contract in about 4 years.

Empty seats / opposing fans in seats driving a Spanos sale seems to be the hope among many SD fans, agree it's silly.

But your A & B (along with the egomaniacs theory) seem awfully far fetched as well. Regardless of how ludicrous the LA Chargers debacle becomes, it won't be solely attributable "to a major drop in net (NFL) TV ratings".
And "competitive balance", if anything owners appreciate having a fumbling team to make theirs look that much better. Even accepting the 8 teams with @LAC get a little bump, how much can that bother other owners, next to the teams that have to play a game in London? Never mind those teams losing a home game for it?

Summary: NFL owners aren't going to start forcing one of their own to make a major move he doesn't want to make.

However: LA Chargers seem likely to financially fail; large annual relocation and rent payments, but light annual ticket sales; meanwhile many unsold PSLs, and almost no physical assets (not even a small part of a stadium).

Aftermath: San Diegans keep laughing at Spanos when he finally sells to end his miserable ownership experience. God willing, we build ourselves a reasonably sized convention center and a 2nd runway in a major commercial airport.

One is that the claim the county committed to spend $150 million on a stadium is wrong because it never went to the full Board of Supervisors for a vote. And two, it’s wrong because it would have been just a loan, thus not an actual sacrifice.

Geez. I understood that the "commitment" wasn't really a commitment, didn't know just how bad it was until this.

The Chargers arrived uninvited into a market still skeptical about embracing one team. For Los Angeles, it was like getting a second bread-making machine as a housewarming gift. You weren’t even sure you’d use the first one.

Great analogy, and it sums up the core issue of the LA Chargers nicely. If only the analogy could include something about that 2nd bread machine coming from a neighbor's crumbling house, a neighbor who inexplicably loved the bread maker and loathes the man who took it away...

Cowherd's co-host, Kristine Leahy, said on Monday that the Chargers had asked her to tell Cowherd to be nicer to them. Here's the exchange on the air:

Ugh, that exchange insert/link is no longer on that msn.com page.

Again, I hear people telling the media stuff like "Spanos and LA Chargers brass are running around telling everybody, stuff like hey be nice to us please, and we figured LA people would love us and SD people would keep supporting us!" But it's all reported as gossip, pretty much. Would be nice to get an actual quote from an actual person, with the actual words s/he wrote/said, and to whom.

The sad part is fans ...... DO NOT HAVE THE BALLS TO ADMIT DEAN SPANOS WAS GETTING PUNKED.

It is easier to blame the rich guy as being the a-hole.

Jammer was right ... the fans are idiots (for the most part).

I don't see that the punk was getting punked, Dean held all the cards.
But the politicians and many fans/voters acted like it wasn't the case.
I'm fine with standing up to him and not playing his game. Where I disagree is not owning up to it when he made good on his threat and played his cards (left SD), instead acting all shocked and dismayed and hurt.

OK, a valid enough perspective for a SD resident. Maybe a billionaire who loves San Diego owns an NFL team in 5 or 15 (or whatever) years will view the Charger exodus somewhat that way. He'll be happy slowly working with SD to spend his money, with a bit of help from SD, building a stadium where SD wants it. Or happy to spend his own money to get it done wherever and however he wants (like Kronke in LA).

But most owners are likely to see other factors, from a less rosy light. Yes the city was happy to talk about a stadium for years, and showed every indication of willingness to talk for many more years to come. Appoint panels to schedule meetings to discuss when and where to meet next and maybe even what talking points to cover when they talk next, rinse, repeat.
...
Does a neutral-billionaire-future-owner think, "well that guy tried to get it built where he wanted it to be, in the vibrant downtown, not where the city wanted it to be, in a deadspace valley in need of renewal - so maybe SD really is a great place to move my team to!"? Doesn't seem likely.

A potential new owner who has deep pockets will want to control as many revenue streams as possible in a new stadium, and would want to be able to plan for their own long-term success at the new site.

The Spanos clan was saying for years that MV was the site they wanted because they could develop the rest of the property to create new revenue streams that would pay for the stadium and turn a profit down the road.

After the real estate crash of 2008, the Spanos' tune changed on this, and Fabiani started throwing around the notion of "piggybacking the new stadium onto existing infrastructure," which was when they started looking at glomming on to Petco Park for parking and a trolley station.

So that means that Dean barely has enough capital to work with to get anything done. He literally can't risk "going big" and having his own stadium with his own surrounding development - if any part of it fails, he's broke and out of the NFL game.

This same exact dynamic is currently in play in LA. We had the Farmers' Field proposal, in downtown LA, where they could latch on to the existing infrastructure around the Staples Center for parking lots, freeway off-ramps, subway stations, etc.

Or, if you want to have it all yourself, you could buy the Hollywood Park site and develop the whole thing yourself from the ground up. Like Kroenke's doing.

The Kroenke idea is more of a risk-reward proposition. It's more up-front investment, but the back end could be huge. Kroenke could make hundreds of millions in profit from the retail sites and the concert venue on that property.

Spanos lacks the kind of capital to front that money and lacks the ability to be patient enough for it to pay off.

But if some billionaire wanted to buy the Chargers and move them back to SD, they could either make the long-term investment and redevelop the Qualcomm site, or they could build a stadium downtown (assuming they could acquire the land) and latch on to the existing trolley station, parking, and all of the local bars, restaurants, shops, etc.

I think both would be welcomed by San Diego, but fans prefer Mission Valley.

But the ludicrous part is finding the buyer who's willing to do it, not expecting SD to support an NFL team.

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Originally Posted by jonnybolt1

But your A & B (along with the egomaniacs theory) seem awfully far fetched as well. Regardless of how ludicrous the LA Chargers debacle becomes, it won't be solely attributable "to a major drop in net (NFL) TV ratings".

Oh yeah?!?

Let's see what happens when CBS and Fox get ready to negotiate their next contract with the NFL.

It's impossible for the NFL to claim that there are any extenuating circumstances leading to their TV rating tanking completely in SD and StL, while still dropping in the LA market.

Unless someone named Branson or Musk starts a TV network and wants to overpay for the rights to the NFL, the league will definitely have their day of reckoning in 2021. As it stands now, the networks are furious with the league, and their affiliates are already complaining to the league and their parent networks. TV money talks.

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Originally Posted by jonnybolt1

And "competitive balance", if anything owners appreciate having a fumbling team to make theirs look that much better. Even accepting the 8 teams with @LAC get a little bump, how much can that bother other owners, next to the teams that have to play a game in London? Never mind those teams losing a home game for it?
...

Oh really??!?

If the next couple of AFC championship games get played in Denver or Oakland instead of in Foxboro or Pittsburgh, that sh*t is gonna come up REAL quick.

I can only imagine how ESPN and the like would react if the Broncos keep edging out the Pats for home-field advantage when everyone knows they have an extra gimme game @LAC every year. God forbid what would happen if the Jets turned out to be for real...

That's something the NFL could actually fix, unlike how Indy and NE used to feast on sh*tty division opponents for years. This would be something of the NFL's own doing....which could be un-done to favor the east coast teams. When you think about it from that perspective, it's almost surprising nothing has happened yet.

... But the ludicrous part is finding the buyer who's willing to do it

All that essentially fits my point: to get an NFL team in SD, an owner has to want to (or need to) move and has to love SD to choose to work for it despite the appearance I've described in previous posts.

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Oh yeah?!?

Let's see what happens when CBS and Fox get ready to negotiate their next contract with the NFL.

It's impossible for the NFL to claim that there are any extenuating circumstances leading to their TV rating tanking completely in SD and StL, while still dropping in the LA market.

Unless someone named Branson or Musk starts a TV network and wants to overpay for the rights to the NFL, the league will definitely have their day of reckoning in 2021. As it stands now, the networks are furious with the league, and their affiliates are already complaining to the league and their parent networks. TV money talks.

Oh really??!?

If the next couple of AFC championship games get played in Denver or Oakland instead of in Foxboro or Pittsburgh, that sh*t is gonna come up REAL quick.

I can only imagine how ESPN and the like would react if the Broncos keep edging out the Pats for home-field advantage when everyone knows they have an extra gimme game @LAC every year. God forbid what would happen if the Jets turned out to be for real...

That's something the NFL could actually fix, unlike how Indy and NE used to feast on sh*tty division opponents for years. This would be something of the NFL's own doing....which could be un-done to favor the east coast teams. When you think about it from that perspective, it's almost surprising nothing has happened yet.

Really.
The NFL figures to take a huge hit in upcoming negotiations, TV & CBA (honestly probably not CBA, NFL players seem to cave far more easily, thus gets crapped on, compared to, say MLB players).
I'm sure owners care loads about NFL TV ratings, but they're a long, long way from forcing the owner with the worst ratings to sell or move.
And the owners revolting against 1 bad team for paving too easy a road through the playoffs for the others in that div, again to force a sale/move? Seems too silly on too many levels for me to bother to list counterpoints now.
So I think I'll just concede that while the scenarios seem unlikely enough to me to be called impossible, I'm not omniscient, can't perfectly predict owner behavior, so could be wrong.

FWIW, I do hope that I am somehow proven wrong. Also, I do think the Forbes valuation will be proven wrong within a few years, and LA Charger financial failure leading to Spanos selling seems at least somewhat likely.

All that essentially fits my point: to get an NFL team in SD, an owner has to want to (or need to) move and has to love SD to choose to work for it despite the appearance I've described in previous posts.

Really.
The NFL figures to take a huge hit in upcoming negotiations, TV & CBA (honestly probably not CBA, NFL players seem to cave far more easily, thus gets crapped on, compared to, say MLB players).
I'm sure owners care loads about NFL TV ratings, but they're a long, long way from forcing the owner with the worst ratings to sell or move.
And the owners revolting against 1 bad team for paving too easy a road through the playoffs for the others in that div, again to force a sale/move? Seems too silly on too many levels for me to bother to list counterpoints now.
So I think I'll just concede that while the scenarios seem unlikely enough to me to be called impossible, I'm not omniscient, can't perfectly predict owner behavior, so could be wrong.

FWIW, I do hope that I am somehow proven wrong. Also, I do think the Forbes valuation will be proven wrong within a few years, and LA Charger financial failure leading to Spanos selling seems at least somewhat likely.

Take a peek at what history says about a team's value and what it costs to kill the pain.

The sad part is fans ...... DO NOT HAVE THE BALLS TO ADMIT DEAN SPANOS WAS GETTING PUNKED.

It is easier to blame the rich guy as being the a-hole.

Jammer was right ... the fans are idiots (for the most part).

You'll never hear me defend the politician in San Diego, but was there anything stopping Team Spanos from building a Stadium in San Diego using their own money?

Didn't they have a plan to build a Stadium in Carson with The Raiders?

Wouldn't most of us agree that Team Spanos has been terrible at PR from day one. I'm still trying to remember the fight for San Diego.

It wasn't the fans that kept McCoy as head coach longer than they should have, especially with the most important vote in franchise history only a few months away and lets not forget the best move of all. Playing hardball with your first round pick.

33 years 12 winning season.

As far as Jammer goes, he has to hold the NFL all-time record for getting called for holding on 3rd and long and I say that as a fan of his.

Could the city leaders have done more? Sure, but if Team Spanos had put half the effort that they have in Los Angeles in San Diego, my guess is, they'd still be playing there. At least they wouldn't be ignored like there are at their new home.